Saturday, August 17, 2013

Greece Completes Gambling Monopoly Privatization



Greece has recently agreed to sell no less than a 33% stake to a Czech equity fund led by two investors who paid 650 for the stake in the gambling monopoly OPAP, the gaming and betting firm which is responsible for the management of sports betting games and lottery in the debt-ridden European country. The transaction needs to be approved by Greece’s competition commission.
The sale has previously been agreed in May, when the Czech company agreed on a financial consideration of 712m, an amount which is more than 18 times bigger than analysts’ estimations regarding the gross gaming revenues of the 2013 financial year.
Greece is still under the pressure of meeting the requirements for completing the bailout plan, the European country being currently forced to raise almost 10 billion from assets by the beginning of 2016. At this point in time, Greece has already agreed on a deal with a consortium led by OPAP in order to privatize the state lottery. Furthermore, the European Court of Justice has declared earlier this year that the Greek government has not fully fulfilled the requirements stated by the court, but the Greek government eventually proposed to grant OPAP with exclusive rights to internet gaming and betting services until 2020. Online gaming software providers can benefit if the decision will be favorable and make available online casino software forsale.

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